


The Last Mermaid

by jbj2117



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Mermaids, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25583287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jbj2117/pseuds/jbj2117
Summary: A disease has been killing the mermaids slowly, all across the world, one by one. The last of their pod, Cora and her sister spend their final days together desperately looking for an escape from their seemingly inevitable dooms.
Kudos: 2





	The Last Mermaid

Mermaids have been around since the time the sun burst, or so the legends go. But, Cora wondered as she swam through twisted coral stalks, if they had truly been alive for so long, how could they now be dying out?  


No mermaid, not even the smartest of the wise ones, had ever been able to track the disease (if that’s what it was) to a source. They could not tell how it spread, if it even did. All they knew was that one day, they ruled the sea, and the next, it was easier to list the living than the dead.  


Cora’s pod had been 100 strong just a few short moons ago, now, it was her and her older sister, Alia, left. And her sister, her once beautiful and strong sister, grew weaker every day, her tail strokes lighter, her breathing a bit shallower each day. Cora knew it was coming. And, if patterns held, she would be next. Whatever was killing the mermaids seemed to be something vicious- it attacked families one at a time, starting with the oldest and working it’s way down the family line.  


She entered into the alcove her and Alia had made home since the rest of the pod had passed away, or left. They had been the two youngest members who stayed behind when the disease made its first appearance in their home- all those younger had been taken away by desperate mother’s and father’s, most of whom already showed signs of the illness anyway. 

But, Cora knew, they needed to try.  


But they two had stayed, and when the sharks had begun to drift too far into their territory, lured by the overwhelming smell of death compared to life, they had fled to brighter waters. Alia was already infected by the time they had. Cora hoped the new water might bring her health, but she declined still.  


She never thought she’d see her older sister die before her eyes. She refused to let her mind wander to what would become of herself once Alia was gone.  


Her sister lay in the back corner of the cave, her once shiny dark blue tail dull, scales shedding off to reveal the blister infected skin beneath (?). Cora did her best not to stare, to not remind herself and Alia of what was imminent. Her sister’s black hair was falling out too, leaving patches across her head where the pale skin showed through.  


“Alia...I found you this today.” Cora placed a pearl down next to her sister’s hand. Alia looked at it through hooded eyes, shifting her gaze downwards, no energy in her body to move her head to see the gift properly. The older mermaid had been a collector of the jewels since she was little, using sharks teeth to carve holes into them and seaweed to behind them together into bracelets and necklaces and tail charms. She didn’t even move her hand to brush her fingers over the pearl this time, merely staring down at it, not even enough strength to truly stare so much as let her eyes fall onto it.  


“Thank you, Cora.” Her voice was barely loud enough to be called a whisper- it was more like the words found their way out of her mouth on a stolen exhale.  


“Tomorrow I was thinking I’d travel closer to shore, look for sea glass and seaweed. We can make some jewelry. Matching ones maybe.” Cora settled down beside Alia, bringing Alia’s head onto her shoulder, putting her arm around her.  


“Cora.” Alia’s voice, for the first time in weeks, sounded strong. Cora looked down at her, and her eyes met Alia’s- eyes that, for the first time in a long time, had resolve behind them.  


“Yeah?” her voice grew excited. Maybe Alia was getting better, maybe the new, cleaner and clearer waters had helped to heal her, maybe they could get through this, maybe Alia didn’t have to-  


“I’m dying.”  


“You don’t know. Sometimes things get worse before they get better, for all you know-”  


“Cora, please. I’m dying. And when I die, this….thing will pass onto you and you’ll die too, and then the last of the mermaids that we know of will be gone. But it doesn’t have to be like that.”  


Cora shook her head, confusion wracking her. “I don’t understand, I don’t get what you’re saying.”  


“I’m saying,” Alia urged, reaching for Cora’s hand, “that you don’t have to die. Maybe, if you leave before I’m gone, you can escape it. Maybe if you go above water.”  


Cora dropped Alia’s hand, shock causing her to go limp. “I...mermaids don’t go above land. That’s not allowed, you and I both know that. Only the mermen could, and only the elders at that!”  


“You’re right,” Alia nodded. “It’s not allowed. But it is possible. I’ve heard of mermaids who did it before, and who got thrown out of the pod afterwards. You could go.”  


“We don’t even know what’s up there, the elders refused to tell us! I don’t even know how to! I’m not leaving you!” Reason after reason to stay beneath the water came out of Cora’s mouth, each one more panic-filled than the last.  


“Cora, you shouldn’t have to see your big sister die. I don’t want you to. I’m not asking you to go above land for yourself. Do it for me. Let the last thing I see of you be your chance at living.”  


Cora grabbed her sister’s hand once again, closing her own eyes, and turning her head away from Alia’s gaze. “I’m going to go to sleep now, Alia.” The sun had been setting when she had begun her path home, and the water outside the cave was dark now from the black sky. Cora swam over to her side of the cave, settled down onto her woven seaweed bed. She fell asleep to the sound of her sister’s ragged breathing.  


***  


She woke up to silence. It took Cora a minute to register it, but she could not hear her sister breathing. Please, no! Not yet!  


She jolted up, whipping her head to look at Alia, who was-  


She wasn’t there.  


She wasn’t in her bed.  


Cora swam to the front of the cave in panic, looking for any immediate signs of her sister. Images of impossibilities ran through her mind- sharks coming into the cave, sensing Alia’s weakness, ripping into her, but there would be blood in the water still if that had occurred. Other mermaids? Kidnappings were rare amongst merpeople, but not unheard of. But wouldn’t Cora have woken up if some other being had come into their home?  


But would have Alia just left?  


She looked down onto the rocks beneath the cave entrance, and almost missed the barely-there glint of a dark blue scale a few tail-lengths below her.  


Alia!  


And then, as Cora cast her gaze forward from that scale, there was another, not too far from it.  


A trail to where her sister was.  


Cora sped out, following the dark blue scales through coral mazes and seaweed fields, until she realized that the path she was taking was one she had taken before.  


It was the same route to get back to the area their pod had called home. Their city, houses and temples and public gathering places carved out over centuries amongst the coral, seaweed fields for the young ones to play in, the reef’s edge that overlooked the deep water.  


She came into what had once been the city center, where the pod leader could come and make announcements, ask for the other pod member’s advice and opinions.  


Why the hell did Alia come here?  


As she followed the scales, more and more of them scattered now, towards the Leader’s Chambers, Cora felt hope swirling inside of her. What if there were other mermaids here? 

What if some had come back? They could help Cora care for Alia. Maybe they had found a cure to the illness, and they could start to live normally again.  


And then Cora looked up. Alia was there. Slouched against the wall, something shimmering in her hand.  


Her tail was completely bare of scales, only pale skin now, and what was left of her hair was slowly falling off into the water around her. Her eyes weren’t open. Only the painful moans she let out told Cora she was even still alive.  


“Alia!”  


She got an exhale in return, an acknowledgement of her presence. “Co...ra.”  


“Alia, please,” Cora sobbed, “what did you do? Why are you here?”  


Eyes still closed, Alia took in a deep breath, and on her exhale said, “Cora, in my hand is the gem you need to go onto the land, out of the ocean.” Another breath, another exhale. 

“I’m dying, Cora, but you have time to go still, to save yourself.” Another breath. “I love you and I want you to live, so go and live.” Another exhale.  


“Alia, stop! I’m not leaving you here to die alone in this damned, diseased place, just stop!” The entire time Alia had been ill, Cora had made sure to never get upset in front of her, but she had lost all hopes of fronting now. “Alia, please. Please. I’m your little sister. Don’t make me leave you”  


“Go, Cora, please. For me. After all I’ve done for you as your big sister, do this for me.”  


Cora’s eyes flitted down to the gem in Alia’s hand. It was pale green, glittering despite the lack of sunlight inside the cave. She didn’t want to believe it was what Alia said it was, but, despite herself, she remembered seeing the pod elders leave with it before, when they would go above water.  


“Alia…I don’t even know what I’d do if I got above water. I don’t even know how to make that useless gem work!”  


“Father told me before he died.” Cora’s eyes widened as Alia spoke. “It’s not...exact. How you make it work. He said, ‘you just have to know it will’. And it will. I know, Cora. I…..I know.” Cora knew her sister too well to miss the pause in her words. And, unsaid in that pause, was what she didn’t know.  


“And I have to go now?” She could barely say it, let alone process that it was true.  


Alia smiled, just barely. “Yes. Now.”  


Cora shook her head, overwhelmed. “It can’t be happening like this, it just can’t be, please.” She didn’t know who she was pleading to. Alia, a god, anyone. Anything to fix this.  


“Say goodbye to me Cora.”  


Oh. Goodbye. This was goodbye.  


Cora rushed to her sister, settling in close to her side, holding her hand. “Alia, I love you. I couldn’t have-” a sob cut her off. “I couldn’t have asked for a better sister. I’m going to make this worth it. I promise.”  


Alia hummed in agreement. “I know you will. You’ll live above water, on the land, for the rest of your life. I’ve heard old wives tales of mermaids who did that before. I love you, Cora. My baby sister. Go now, before you can’t bring yourself too.” Alia moved her hand as much as she could to push the gem closer to Cora, who grabbed it from her sister’s limp fingers.  


Alia urged again. “Go, now, Cora. Go.”  


And she did. Before she could let her desire to stay by her sister’s side overwhelm her, and it would, she swam to the cave opening. With a glance back at Alia, she nodded. “I love you.” She had to know Alia heard it.  


“And I love you. Goodbye.” Alia sighed and rested her head backwards.  


And with that, Cora left, swimming out at full speed, hoping to get as far as she could as quickly as she could. Far enough that she couldn’t turn back.  


It wasn’t until she ran out of stamina, nearly collapsing to the sand below her, that Cora realized she wasn’t sure where the nearest place to go above water was. And so, she went up, towards the surface.  


When she broke the water, she looked desperately for any sign of land. Although mermaids were not allowed onto land, they were allowed to look at it from a distance. She turned left, nothing. Right- there. Yellow like the sand and green like seaweed.  


Not too far. But she didn’t have too long either. So she sped, back beneath the waves, as fast as she could to the foreign world she’d have to spend the rest of her life in. Every once in a while she came up again to make sure she was in fact getting closer, that “land” wasn’t some legend and the green she had seen wasn’t some grief-induced mirage.  


Her sister was dead after all, and if that could be true, what couldn’t be?  


And then she hit it, before she even realized. The shore. That’s what the elders called it, that last stretch of water before the land. Before the ocean’s end.  


She held the gem in her hand tight, so much the vertices of it almost cutting her hand. Just know it. Onto land. Her heart’s desire. To be on land.  


To have her sister back, and her mom and her dad and the pod and life as it was and-  


To be on land.  


And as she thought it more, the gem glowed, brighter and brighter green, enveloping her, reflecting into the water around her. It blinded her.  


And then it stopped. She looked down and-  


Her tail. It was gone.  


Instead there was… she didn’t know. They were the same color as her arms, and felt the same too. She tried to move them like her tail, tried to swim, but they weren’t a unit she soon learned. They moved apart from each other.  


Just as quickly, she learned she could no longer breathe. She inhaled through her nose, and it hurt. She rose to the surface, furiously kicking her new limbs, until she broke the water, spitting and coughing.  


And, oh. She was breathing again. The land was right in front of her. She could see the sand, dry- something she’d never seen before. She swam forward, using her arms to help her move through the water- it was hard now, and she pushed to the back of her mind how much that made her ache.  


She finally reached the point where she could no longer swim- she was rather dragging herself against the stand, and it had started to hurt her skin. She pulled the new limbs up, resting on the joint of them, and, using her hands, pushed herself up, so that her body was suspended in the air, held up by what had once been her tail. And she fell, the suddenness of the new movement overtaking her.  


But the sand was soft, and she tried again, and again and again until she was sure in her stance. And then, she stepped. Moved forward.  


And it worked. One limb after the other, setting the bottom of it down before the other. She was…  


She didn’t know what she was doing, or how she knew to.  


But she was doing something.  


In an entirely new world.  


The one on land.  


Alia was dead.  


Cora was moving, alive, on land.  


And then the ground beneath her changed. What was once sand, vaguely familiar underneath her new skin, became green and brown, a completely different feeling to her.  


But not a bad one.  


Just new. The way the wind against her skin was, the way breathing air in without water behind it was- the way being alone was.  


Then she noticed she had dropped the gem when she had panicked and risen to the surface.  


It was gone.  


She couldn’t go back. Not even if she wanted to.  


And, oh, did she want to. But she couldn’t.  


So she kept going, the brown and green ground continuing, and she became surrounded by huge plants that went all the way above her head, all the way into the sky.  


She walked, pushing to the back of her mind that she had no idea when to stop walking, or what she would do when she did. She didn’t know what to eat, where to sleep, if there were any predators to watch for, or what to do if she did encounter one. Did she leave one death sentence for another?  


She walked for what felt like forever until she heard something moving behind her. Rustling in the green. Something close to her.  


whipped her head around to face whatever was coming to her and came face to face with-  


….mermaid?  


without a tail, like her. A mermaid?  


Before she could wonder more, the other spoke.  


"You came from the ocean too, right?”  


Cora nodded curtly.  


“So did we.” The mermaid extended her hand to Cora. “Come with me. I’m Sarya.”  


Cora kept her hands close to her, eyeing the other mermaid harshly. “Why should I? Who are you?’  


“I’m from a pod a little ways from here. The others, they’re mermaids and mermen from pods all around this area. We found each other, wandering around- mermaids who had never been on land before starving. We found each other, created a town, a very small one mind you. The mermen have shown us how to find food here, shown us what foods are safe to eat and what aren’t. We’re living, up here. All of us.” Sarya pushed her hand forward again, her eyes, bright green, staring right into Cora’s.  


Cora took it hesitantly, and Sarya pulled her forwards, pulling towards their new home.  


p>Cora was moving. She was alive.  
Alia would be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! this is my first short story, so I'm really looking for feedback!


End file.
